I am a survivor. Thats what those of us with Traumatic Brain Injuries call ourselves. Because I often can't remember yesterday this journal serves as my memory. I have decided to share my life to help others understand this disability. You can E mail me at bobcarver2@yahoo.com. Your comments are always welcome. Tell your friends about my blog if you find it interesting

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Morning

This morning's sunrise

8/19/07 Sunday I am tired this morning, as one would expect after a day and night such as I had. But at least I am cognizant, running my average of seven on the bob scale. Hope I’m done with this bout of slowdowns. Kinda gun shy about it now. Gonna do a quick study of the Sunday school lesson using the online resources I’ve become accustomed to. That way I may be able to contribute to the class, or may not. Half the time I hold my tongue so I don’t take over or forget my place. I am hesitant to express my views, afraid I will offend.

Gonna take my weekly bath. I know it sounds bad but I usually only take a bath once a week. Don’t get me wrong, I usually clean up daily but save the bath for Sunday. I only shave once a week as well. For one thing it saves the razors, reducing the expense of replacing them. I’m not concerned about what others think of me regarding the unshaven look. From television and movies I suppose a few days beard growth is considered sexy or some crap like that. That’s the last thing I want. One of the concerns I expressed to Cherie is if I have a body odor problem from not taking a daily bath. My ability to smell is one of the senses effected by the brain injury. In Toledo I showered every morning but after nine months with out hot water and no shower, only a bathtub, I got out of the habit. Now that we have hot water I need to start taking baths more instead of the “Stand uppy” (what my grandmother called them way back when I lived here as a teen) where I wash with a wash cloth out of the pan of water heated for that purpose.

Time to get ready for church. -----------------------------Necessity is the mother of invention. When I went fire up the Q-grill the propane bottle was empty. Nuts. I had my heart set on grilling these rib eyes and they were sitting here all seasoned and rubbed. Jumping in the truck I run to the grocery store in Stanton with the desperate hope they carried the little bottles of propane. Nope. Stopped at the Town and Country truck stop just in case. I wasn’t surprised to find none there. Driving to Midland just didn’t make sense. Twenty minutes each way plus the time in the store was longer than I wanted to wait. Cherie had suggested cooking them in the toaster oven but that’s no way to treat a good steak. Nope.

I’m gonna build a grill I announced to Cherie and went out to see what I could scavenge up. Got some cinderblocks, concrete blocks, stainless shelves out of one of the old refrigerators, something that looked like a broiler plate from a small oven, and an aluminum griddle that came off of who knows what. So I got a piece of tin roofing for the floor of this thing and stacked up the blocks and bricks to make this makeshift thing. Chopped some mulberry, pecan, and mesquite wood and started a fire.

I've always preferred wood and had planned on building a nice grill at some future date when more essential things were taken care of. The propane grill we picked up when living in an apartment in Toledo. Better than nothing but this pile of blocks will be getting a lot of use. Besides all that, we've only lived in Texas for nine months so I'm still getting "Texanafied"